Bargaining
by VampirePam
Summary: Episode tag to S01E10, "Number Crunch." In back of the limo, a barely conscious Reese takes the opportunity to question Finch about his personal life. Finch, meanwhile, finds himself confronted with some intense, unexpected feelings. Pre-Slash.


**Author's Note: **Very slight AU, in that I have Detective Carter drive them to the morgue so Finch can stay with Reese in the backseat. Otherwise, everything happens as it does in canon.

* * *

**Person of Interest**: John Reese. **Situation**: GSW to the Abdomen. **Corrective Measures**: Apply Compression. **Full Extent of Injuries**: …...Unknown. **Probability of Survival**: …...Unknown.

"Finch. Finch. Finch!" Harold did not realize how completely he'd retreated into his mind until he heard John calling his name, probably not for the first time.

"You should save your strength, Mr. Reese," he responded quickly, letting the hand not staunching his partner's gunshot wound rest on his chest. Harold was unsettled to notice that his voice seemed to lack all its customary authoritative vigor. "Detective Carter will have us somewhere safe in no time."

"Finch," John said again, gazing up at him from his position in Harold's lap. Though his voice was decidedly weak, Harold was relieved to see that John's gray eyes were staring purposefully into his own blue ones. "Tell me a story."

Harold felt contrasting waves of emotion rock him suddenly - fondness at his partner's seemingly boundless ability to surprise him, and fear at losing that bright spot from his life. _This is not the time, Harold. _ _Your partner needs you. John. John needs you. _

He smiled. _Keep it light. Banter. Joke. Don't look at the blood. _"Any particular one? I'm rather fond of _1984._"

Reese let out a short laugh that, to Finch's dismay, turned almost instantly to a groan, before sliding a hand over the one Finch was still absently resting on his chest. "I was thinking yours."

"Mr. Reese..." Finch trailed off. 'I'm a private person'hardly seemed to cut it in this sort of situation. "You know it isn't that simple."

"Just give me something," John rasped out. Finch felt the hand resting on his tighten suddenly as a shudder ran through John's body, forcing him to inhale sharply. After a few moments, he stilled, though his hand was still clasped tightly over Harold's. "Anything. I'll be damned if I'm going to die without knowing more about you, Harold."

Harold felt the words _going to die _hit like a sledgehammer. _Please, no. _So intense was his terror at that moment that he didn't even consciously register his hand sliding up to rest on John's head until his fingers were brushing his hair, matted with sweat, back from his face.

"John," Harold said, forcing himself to take a ragged breath in, "you are not going to die. Not on my watch."

John held his gaze for a few seconds, as if searching it for any sign of deception, before giving a brief nod and closing his eyes. He leaned his head against Harold's hand. "Please, Harold." His voice was little more than a whisper.

_Damn it. _ Even his hard-won privacy was nothing compared with the way John had just said, 'Please.' "Okay, I'll tell you. But only because I'm banking on you not remembering any of this tomorrow."

When he was rewarded with a smile - pained, but sincere - Harold knew he'd made the right call. He took a deep breath and began.

"Once upon a time, in an undisclosed town, in an undisclosed state, there lived a small boy. The world he was born to was...entirely unremarkable. So unremarkable, in fact, that from the time he was two years old, he completely refused to live in it at all. Why should he confine himself to the ordinary when the extraordinary was just a few pages away?"

"Let me...guess..." John's breathing was growing more ragged by the second. "Soon...just reading...about...exciting people...wasn't...enough...he had to...become...one."

"Ssh, yes, that's right," Harold said quickly, carding his fingers in a slow, repetitive motion through John's hair in the hopes that it would encourage him to stop overexerting himself.

"He wanted nothing more than to escape the prison of his mundane existence, so when things...took a turn for the worse, he flew away and never looked back. It was easier in those days - a few dollars in the right hands, a handful of cut-and-pasted documents, an altered photograph or two, and you could be anyone you wanted to be."

"And what...did he...want to be?" John asked. Harold was relieved to hear that his partner's tone had evened out somewhat, though it still sounded frighteningly far away.

"Free." It sounded so simple when he said it that way; for himself at seventeen, it had been anything but. Still, those were scars for another day.

"This man..." John swallowed hard before continuing. "What's his...favorite color?"

Harold laughed, though he heard it teeter dangerously close to a sob toward the end. _Ever a surprise, John. _"Cornflower blue."

"What about...his most...embarrassing...secret?" In spite of everything, John was smiling just a little when he said it.

Harold was glad John's eyes were still closed, so he couldn't see the tears welling up in his. _Come on, Harold, almost there, keep it together. _"Why Mr. Reese, if I didn't know better, I'd swear you arranged this whole thing as an interrogation."

"Don't...change...the...subject..." John insisted, his words slurring together and falling away.

"His mother was a seamstress," Harold practically shouted, thinking of nothing beyond keeping John awake. "She taught him how to sew when he was eight years old. By the time he was thirteen, he was mending dresses for half the women in town. He can still sew a perfect topstitch in his sleep."

When his story elicited no response, Harold reached up to shake John gently by the shoulder. "Mr. Reese? Reese? John!" He repeated the inquiry a few more times, each more frantic than the last, all the while shaking him with increasing force until John's head lolled limply against Harold's stomach. Still he did not respond.

"Come on, John, don't do this to me," Harold mumbled, as much to himself as to his unconscious partner. "Please don't do this to me." When he finally tore his eyes from John's still quiescent features and turned his attention to the wound, he was dismayed to see the handkerchief he had pressed to it had long been soaked through and rendered useless.

Tears of grief and desperation now falling freely from his eyes, Harold quickly stripped off his jacket and pressed it to his partner's abdomen. "How are we doing, Detective Carter?" he shouted to the front seat.

The partition separating the front and back seats came down an inch as a determined female voice announced, "Five more minutes, less if we make the lights. How's he doing back there?"

In trying to think of an appropriate answer, Harold's mind went completely blank. After a few seconds, he settled on, "Just hurry, please." He was grateful the detective made no comment on the teary wavering of his voice, just scrolled up the partition and, judging from the limo's noticeable jerk forward, punched the accelerator.

"Now you, you have to stop this right now," Harold said to John, ignoring the little voice that was telling him it was absurd to try to reason with an unconscious man. "You haven't even heard the end of the story yet."

As one for whom lying was not only a habit, but a way of life, Harold was shocked how quickly the absolute truth spilled out of him at this moment. "Life wasn't terribly kind to the man after that. One by one he lost everyone he'd ever loved. Then, just when he'd sworn off caring about anyone ever again, he met someone - someone he was naive enough to think he was saving."

As part of this last, desperate attempt to summon John back from unconsciousness - and if he was going to continue this streak of uncharacteristic honesty, because he wanted to very much - Harold moved his free hand so it was cradling his partner's face before continuing.

"And this man...he brought him back, sometimes kicking and screaming, from exile. He gave him purpose. He gave him hope that maybe, just maybe this world could be changed for the better. And now...now he can't imagine his life without him."

He brought his forehead close to John's before finishing in a hoarse, tear-filled whisper, "Please, John, don't make him have to."

He remained right there until the limo's abrupt stop a couple minutes later had him automatically jerking back up. Before he knew it, Detective Carter was yanking open the back door and shouting, "The coast is clear - quick, slide him toward me."

The irrational part of Harold's brain didn't want to let go of John, not even for a second, but its dominant rational counterpart had him prioritizing his partner's safety over his own feelings without any real debate.

As he watched John move away from him and onto the gurney Detective Carter had found, Harold found himself wishing he were the sort of man who could believe in God. As much faith as he had in The Machine, it could hardly respond to appeals. But since he knew it would hear him, Harold found himself entreating it anyway. "Please, please, just let him live."


End file.
